When you are a young kid, Christmas is a magical time of year filled with fairy lights, presents, too many sweets, chocolate, and family time.
The older you get, the less exciting the period becomes. As an adult, the excitement can sometimes turn into a sense of foreboding. Christmas is not a great time of year if you’re struggling. The memories of previous happier times as a child only act as the ghost of Christmas past in your very own Christmas Carol.
Sometimes you can be surrounded by people yet still feel lonely. Other times, as much as you love spending time with your family, you can feel completely physically and emotionally drained by the whole experience.
There’s so much pressure to participate, to buy, to consume. If you don’t have a lot of money it’s easy to feel like a failure, especially when you see articles about others that have spent thousands on gifts, people that have nice clean houses, perfectly decorated and more lights than Blackpool illuminations. Is this really what it’s all about?
Don’t get me started on the food. I’ve never been a fan of Turkey, especially the nauseating smell of a fresh raw turkey. Vegetables that nobody likes but everyone feels compelled to cook, using up every pot and pan in the house. The sheer quantity of food is enough to give you indigestion just thinking about it.
Does anybody ever have a Christmas where nothing goes wrong? Whether it be the cooker breaking on Christmas Eve, a car crash in the snow or an accident involving a pan of boiling water? There always has to be something? I’m with the Grinch on this one.
These are all first world problems, I know. The hardest times are reserved for those that will be putting out one less stocking this year, one less place mat and cracker at the table. Grief is a cruel mistress at any time of year but it’s those occasions when normally everyone would be together, celebrating the passing of another year that really bring it home that you’re never going to see that person again, never going to be able to give them a big hug and say I love you. It turns out that the only meaningful present is presence, yet it’s a gift we only truly know the value of when it has gone.
The price of happiness and joy is that one day those things will be taken away from you. All the things that went wrong, the incinerated turkey, the pink cauliflower, the presents without batteries, the tummy bugs, the broken trifle bowls, the flaming tea towels, the plastic frog in the gravy boat, the dog that ate the tinsel. It’s all those little mini disasters that stick in the memory and become part of our family stories. They may have brought us to tears at the time, but then they bring us to tears of laughter as we recall the stories then comes the tears of sadness as the memories fade and there are no new happy memories to replace them.
I want to dedicate this piece to all those people that are missing someone they loved and lost. be it the bereaved or heartbroken. I know it’s not a feeling that goes away, you just learn to live with it and the only comfort we can offer is to acknowledge the pain and offer the hand of friendship and compassion.
Rant Over 